


Overwork

by BeyondTheClouds777



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: "but now we're stressed out", Anxiety, Cuddling & Snuggling, Don't copy to another site, Future Fic, Gen, Heavy Comfort, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Living Together, Mild hurt, Queerplatonic Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Queerplatonic Relationships, they just got an apartment together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeyondTheClouds777/pseuds/BeyondTheClouds777
Summary: Shouyou has never been able to handle anxiety well. Now he has Tobio to help handle it with him.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Queerplatonic Relationship(s) - Relationship
Comments: 5
Kudos: 114





	Overwork

**Author's Note:**

> this little qpr kagehina series is a bit out of order, but this would be the first one in the timeline, set right after hina and kags move in together but before hina got hired at the coffee shop. i hope you all like it!!! <3

Tobio wakes up with a crick in his neck, legs hanging off the arm of the couch, feeling like his brain had been rattled on its hinges. Sitting up, stretching, he can hear something metal ring on the kitchen floor, like a spinning coin. Only bigger. 

“Shouyou?” 

“It’s okay, I can fix it!” comes Shouyou’s voice in return, but he sounds somewhat strangled. “Nothing happened!” 

Tobio swings himself to his feet. “If nothing happened then you wouldn’t need to fix anything,” he says, patting across the carpet and toward the kitchen, hands stuffed in the pockets of his sweatpants. It’s one of those ‘lazy’ days, where there’s nothing better to do than just hang out, get cozy on the couch with popcorn, hot cocoa and a crappy game show on TV. 

Or, it  _ should  _ be one of those days. And it would be one of those days if not for Shouyou’s interview scheduled for just a few days from now.

“I-I just dropped a pan!” Shouyou shouts back at him, and Tobio can hear him scramble to set everything straight again. “It’s not a big deal!”

“Mm.” Tobio pokes his head around the doorframe. “... That’s more than one pan.” 

Shouyou  _ jumps,  _ whirling around to face him. There are two pans in his arms and another three on the floor. Their lids are scattered all over the place. Shouyou looks like he’d gotten caught with his hand in a cookie jar, only there’s more hysteric exhaustion in his eyes than there has any right being, and Tobio can’t find it in him to be annoyed. 

He sighs. “Do you want help?” Already stepping into the kitchen and bending down, though, he takes up the nearest pan. “What are you even doing? It’s—” He stops. It’s dark outside, he fell asleep  _ somewhere  _ around 10…? He glances around before remembering they haven’t put a clock in this kitchen like he’s used to having at his parents’ house. He looks at Shouyou. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” 

Shouyou stacks the pans on the counter and swipes the back of his hand under his eyes, nodding shakily. “It was like two when I got up.” 

“How long have you been up?” 

“Like…” Shouyou’s face screws up, and usually Tobio would poke fun at him for struggling so ardently with a thought, but this time it’s more saddening than anything. He really does look out of it. “Like... an hour? Dunno. Time’s been weird.” 

Tobio lets his shoulders sag. “Shouyou.” 

“I-I’m just nervous, okay?” He fiddles with the hem of his hoodie (or, Tobio’s hoodie) for a time before busying himself with the pots. He sets one on the stove and bends down to place the others in the lower cabinet. “I didn’t mean to drop all the pans. Did I wake you up?” 

Tobio kneels beside him, handing him scattered lids and pots alike. “Yeah, but it’s probably better. Would’ve been a pain in the neck to sleep on that couch all night. Literally.” 

“Mm.” The hum is non-commital, and Shouyou’s hands linger on the knobs of the cabinet, long after he’s shut them. “... Sorry.” 

“It’s fine, don’t worry about me,” Tobio says, and the word  _ worry  _ springs to and fro in his mind. He reaches out, gently enough to barely grace Shouyou’s cheek with his knuckles and brush some of his hair from his face. “I’m more worried about you, honestly.” 

“I’ll be fine.” Shouyou pushes himself to his feet and Tobio joins him. Even in their first year as university students, Tobio is still the taller of the two and Shouyou is still much, much shorter than the average height for a boy his age. He isn’t as insecure about it now as he was when he was younger, though, so Tobio doesn’t feel bad teasing him for it every now and then. 

Now isn’t the time, though. 

“You should get some sleep,” he says instead, trying to sound casual. That’s the best way to go about stuff like this where Hinata is concerned. Pretend everything is fine and eventually, with casual coaxing, he’ll cave. “It won’t do you any good being exhausted for the interview.” 

“B-But—” Shouyou grits his teeth, gaze cast downward. “What if—Wh-what if I screw it up?” 

There it is. Tobio’s known that was the problem for a while but he was waiting for Shouyou to bring it up. “You aren’t gonna screw it up, stupid.” 

“But I  _ am!”  _ Shouyou runs both hands through his hair and tugs, breath sharp and shaky. “Wh-What if I forget what to say, or—or if I don’t know how to answer a question, or—” His eyes blow wide, horror pouring over them like liquid glass. “Oh my god, what if they  _ hate  _ me, I won’t be able to get a job or help you pay rent and we’ll lose the apartment and—!” 

“Shouyou.” Tobio takes him by the shoulders, then cups his hands to his cheeks and meets his eyes. “You’re spiraling.”

“I’m  _ right!”  _

“Shouyou.”

“I’m going to ruin it!” Shouyou says, and there are unshed tears behind his voice that Tobio wishes he could wipe away. “I-I’m gonna ruin  _ everything,  _ I-I’m no good at interviews, I’m no good with people, I’m no good at  _ anything  _ I just don’t know how I’m going to-” 

“Shouyou.” 

Shouyou croaks on his next word, which Tobio can’t even make out, and ducks his head. Tobio holds fast, but gently. 

“You’re gonna do fine.” 

“What if I d-” 

“You will.” Tobio bends down until he can bring their foreheads together. Shouyou’s breaths are fast and erratic, desperate and scared and Tobio steadies his own breathing to counter it. “You’ll be fine, alright? You’re energetic, and enthusiastic, and I don’t know what you mean about not being good with people because that’s never been you.  _ Me,  _ yes, but not you.” 

Shouyou doesn’t smile and ducks his head further, but not enough to pull out of Tobio’s hold. He sniffs and fought-back tears well in his eyes. “I don’t want to be the reason why this doesn’t work out for us.” 

“You won’t be. Promise. We’ve always been able to figure stuff out. This isn’t even the worst thing we’ve—Shouyou, it hasn’t even  _ happened  _ yet. I’m sure you’re going to do just fine. And on the off-chance that you don’t—which I  _ really  _ don’t see happening—we’ll just fly by the seat of our pants, like we’ve always done, and figure it out on the way. Alright?”

Their relationship is like this. A push and a pull. Shouyou drifts too far and Tobio pulls him back; and vice versa. Shouyou blinks and Tobio can finally brush the tears off his face. 

“What were you even trying to make?” 

Shouyou sobs wetly, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands. “R-Ramen.” 

“Do you still want ramen?” 

Shouyou nods shakily. Tobio pulls him into a tight, brief, unreturned hug (Shouyou’s arms were kind of trapped between them so it’s not like he could hug back properly anyway), and when he’s pulled away, he spins Shouyou by the shoulders and gives him a shove on the back. 

“Go sit on the couch, I’ll make the ramen.” 

“Y-You don’t have to.” 

“Obviously, but you look like you’re about to keel over and it’s literally just instant ramen, it takes two minutes. Go sit.” 

Shouyou rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue further, instead murmuring a small thank you on his way out that Tobio doesn’t answer. Their relationship has never required many words; Shouyou knows Tobio heard him and knows how Tobio would respond anyway.  _ You don’t need to apologize, stupid, just go to sleep.  _

Tobio gets the kettle going and finds two cups of instant ramen in the pantry (they’re almost out, he makes a mental note to run downtown and pick some up from the store tomorrow). But he doesn’t open them yet. He settles them on the kitchen counter, waits a whole two minutes, then shuts off the kettle and listens closer. 

There’s no noise from the living room. And Shouyou, even if he isn’t necessarily speaking, is not a quiet person.

Tobio already knows what he’s going to find there, but he checks anyway, and sure enough, there’s Shouyou on the couch, flopped on his back, limbs sprawled and limp, and he’s fast asleep. 

Tobio holds back a chuckle only because Shouyou is the lighter sleeper of the two of them, and he steps from the kitchen into the living room, toward the couch. Shouyou seems to be sleeping alright, and he has an easier time sleeping on the couch than Tobio, but Tobio doesn’t want him to wake up sore in the morning because he avoided his bed. 

So Tobio slides one arm beneath his shoulders, the other in the crook of his knees and lifts him in one gentle motion. Shouyou startles awake with a gasp, eyes flying wide and hands grasping blindly and frantically at Tobio’s shirt. 

“Easy, easy, it’s just me,” Tobio says, pressing him in close to his chest. “You can’t sleep on the couch, stupid.” 

Shouyou’s panic is gone—it was gone the moment he realized what was going on—but he still frowns at Tobio, tired, prevailing even as Tobio moves toward the bedroom.

“I can w—” 

“No.” 

“M’kay.” 

He gave up that fight a little too quick. Which is good, because he needs to sleep, but confirmation to Tobio just how bad it’s gotten. Shouyou has walked hand-in-hand with insecurity since before high school, as did Tobio, but usually Shouyou can bump himself out of his funks. Not this time. They’re in for a long haul with this one. It sucks, of course, but Tobio is at least happy to be here now. Sometimes he thinks about how Shouyou used to be alone in this and it always makes his stomach hurt. 

“Here we go.” Tobio toes the door open and shut with his foot and steps inside the bedroom. It’s dark, and quiet, and peaceful. “I’m gonna go shut the lights off in the kitchen, I’ll be right—” 

“I’m still scared.” Shouyou’s voice is soft and muffled by the front of Tobio’s shirt, so much that he barely hears it. Tobio stops walking. His fingernails dig into Tobio’s collar. “About the interview.” 

Tobio doesn’t sigh, although he wants to, because that isn’t what Shouyou needs right now even if it’s a sigh of understanding and not a sigh of annoyance. He doesn’t set Shouyou down like he’d planned, but instead sits on the bed with him with arms cradling him close and secure, and he waits until Shouyou’s shoulders have relaxed before speaking. 

“I know,” Tobio says softly, murmured against the crown of his head. “I know. But you’ll be fine.”

There’s a part of him that still wants to go turn off the kitchen lights, but, he can do that later. When Shouyou is asleep. 

“I’m sorry.” Shouyou’s voice is quiet, Tobio can barely hear it, and he turns his blotchy, tear-streaked face into Tobio’s chest. “That I’m—l-like this.” 

“‘Like this’?” Tobio repeats, pulling Shouyou back by his shoulder. Shouyou doesn’t meet his eyes, not until Tobio tilts his head up gently. “Don’t apologize, Shou, it happens to the best of us. We all get anxious about interviews and jobs and whether or not people will like us. And I can’t promise everything will always go well, but I can promise that I’m gonna be here.” 

Shouyou swallows and glances to the side, biting his lip. He’s stopped crying, but there are still tears in his eyes and stains on his cheeks. “I… I know you’re right, it’s just--right now, I--” 

Tobio’s nod cuts him off, silently and understanding. “Yeah, I get it.” And he draws Shouyou in again, tucking him into his chest and resting his chin atop his head. Shouyou shudders and leans in closer. “Your brain’s just kicking your ass right now. I get it. It’ll be better in the morning, once you’ve slept. It’s okay.”

Shouyou hums, muffled. His trembling, white fingers tangle in the front of Tobio’s shirt. “T… Thanks.” 

“Anytime.” Tobio lets the silence settle, before whispering softly, “Is there anything else I can do?” 

Shouyou shakes his head, a movement Tobio feels more than hears. He hadn’t noticed before, but he can feel Shouyou’s heartbeat, fast and thready. Tobio scoots the two of them backwards until he can rest against the head of the bed, stretching out his legs and leaning Shouyou into his chest. Shouyou responds in kind, temple digging into Tobio’s collarbone and knees bent over Tobio’s thigh. Comfortable  _ physically,  _ not entirely, but he feels warm and calm inside and it breaks even. 

Shouyou’s erratic heartbeat slows down in no time, and so does his breathing, moving from something fast and sporadic into something soothing and rhythmic. Tobio lets himself focus on it, mirroring his own breathing to it, and is just about to drop off when he remembers the kitchen lights. 

…

…

… Oh well. 

He sighs and shuts his eyes, settling further against the back of the bed and relaxing his hold on Shouyou into something more comfortable. That’ll just have to be a problem for a future version of him that  _ doesn’t  _ have Shouyou curled and cradled in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you all enjoyed the fic!!!  
> you can hit me up on [tumblr](https://pocket-full-of-wonder.tumblr.com/) too if you'd like and leave prompts/requests of other things you'd like to see in this series! i'd love to hear from y'all <3 
> 
> thank you for reading!!!!


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